twighlight zone evening

last night i went with some colleagues and friends to a philanthropists (spelling?) panel at the new school. in attendance was george soros (guess why i went), Alphonse Fletcher, Jr or Fletcher Asset Management, Agnes Gund, the new york city modern art guru (she’s basically in charge of the MoMA), Evelyn Lauder (daughter-in-law of Estee Lauder) who does lots of private contributions, and the moderator was Bob Kerrey, president of the New School and former rep, governer and senator from Nebraska. Let me just state for the record that Mr. Kerrey is not one of my favorite people and is possibly the worst moderator I have ever seen.

firstly, he started with asking each person to disclose how much they gave last year, which was a ridiculous question given the group. soros funds osi and i personally know that’s well over $400 million a year. agnes gund funds out of her own pockets and, although not exactly in the poorhouse, does not donate on that scale (she doesn’t have that kind of money) and i could tell she was shy about it. give me a break. she should not have been nervous about disclosing the amount of money she gives. she gives a much larger percentage of her income (something like 2/3) than is tax-deductible for charitable giving. i think that’s a fair indication that she cares about what she funds.

anyway, this lauder woman who is also a pain, make several fantastic comments, my favorite being that she was talking to a new york city audience full of highly educated people, very diverse, at a university, and she says “as we all come from the judeo-christian moral tradition…” um, yeah.

people were allowed to ask stupid questions, and then some excellent questions at the end got rushed through. my advice: if you are ever going to a panel and bob kerrey is moderating – RUN. he tries to make inside jokes with the panelists, he’s rude, he doesn’t make an effort to play to people’s strengths and include everybody in the conversation, and he is generally annoying.

if it hadn’t been for the hilariously mortifying moments that frequently graced the evening, it would have been total rubbish.

but then i went out for dinner at rosa mexicano (union square) with anne, risa and don, and 2 pomegranate margaritas later, i was golden. so not all is lost 🙂

3 Responses to “twighlight zone evening”

I’ve been told by a dietician that pomegranete juice is just about the healthiest thing you can consume, and that it could possibly increase your lifespan. So think of all the years you are adding with just a simple evening on the town. 🙂